The England squad to travel to Australia, New Zealand and Papua New Guineap for the 2017 Rugby League World Cup was named at lunchtime today and came hot on the heels of the news that one of its bright stars, Castelford’s Zak Hardaker, was definitely out of the World Cup and facing an uncertain future after failing a drugs test.

England’s World Cup campaign kicks off with a game against the hosts Australia at 20:05 (UK) on Friday the 27th October at AAMI Park in Melbourne, followed by group games against Lebanon and France.

The full twenty-four man squad was named by head coach Wayne Bennett as;

In addition to the England playing squad, seven British based officials have been selected for duty during the competiton including Grand Final referee James Child along with colleagues Phil Bentham, Robert Hicks, Chris Kendall, Scott Mikalauskas, Liam Moore and Ben Thaler.

It has been confirmed that International Rules will be used for the competition. That means the use of one referee, as opposed to two in the NRL, and an in-goal video referral system. There will also be no shot clock for scrums and goal-line drop-outs, but there will be a seventh tackle from the 20-metre re-start if the ball is kicked dead, and a tap re-start from a 40-20 kick.

All views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the RLFANS.COM or it's subsites.

Whilst every effort is made to ensure that news stories, articles and images are correct, we cannot be held responsible for errors. However, if you feel any material on this website is copyrighted or incorrect in any way please contact us using the link at the top of the page so we can remove it or negotiate copyright permission.

RLFANS.COM, the owners of this website, is not responsible for the content of its sub-sites or posts, please email the author of this sub-site or post if you feel you find an article offensive or of a choice nature that you disagree with.